


Classics: Two

by protagonistically (the_protagonist)



Series: Classics [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_protagonist/pseuds/protagonistically
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has to learn this stuff some how.</p>
<p>Or three training sessions in Tim's early career as Robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Classics: Two

Robin is with Dick this evening, working out at the older man’s gym. If Tim hadn’t responded so well to Dick’s coaching, Bruce might be more concerned about the blatant hero-worship the kid projects onto the acrobat. But, as these things go, as long as Dick is fine with it and the boy is actually learning, then he isn’t going to say anything more.   
  
As far as Bruce knows, Tim’s stalker tendencies began and ended with Batman and Robin. But he knows that Dick is someone who has led and taught peers who were both older and younger than himself, and Dick seemed… Interested in his newest pupil, in the rawest sense.  
  
When Bruce had last seen the two, Dick had thrown an arm over Tim’s bony shoulders, shoulders much narrower than Jason’s had ever been, shoulders that were more tense than any thirteen-year-old’s shoulders he’d ever seen – except for possibly his own.  
  
A ‘sleep-over’, the acrobat had called it, and Tim had looked… well... ‘troubled with a strong mixture of elation’ comes to mind, but the boys work _well_ together and Tim seems to learn better without him actually being there. But which him? Batman-him or Bruce-him? It's something that stirs around in the back of his mind.  
  
It’s because of this that Dick has been fairly hands-on with Tim these past few months. It issurprising, given how he’d initially reacted to Jason at first. But upon further introspection, he realizes he might not be the only one with regrets as far as Jason is concerned.   
  
And maybe it isn’t exactly fair of either of them to act these regrets out on Tim, but it really can’t be helped. And the kid _had_ volunteered for this.  
  
And that was _exactly_ why he is here –breaking into the Drake Family manor.   
  
He knows a lot about the boy. Bruce had done hours of research as soon as Tim had made himself *known* to him. Bruce had mentally berated himself for ignoring the millionaire’s savant-like son just a mile from where he sat. Bruce had needed to find out all about the child that had managed to follow him for years and figure out who he was; figure out how he thought, what his motivations were - what was his _game_.   
  
Bruce knows Tim's age, his birthday; he has medical records, dental records, and report cards from birth until present. He knows all about Jack and Janet Drake; upper-class, business savvy people, who had both graduated from top-tier business schools. Drake Industries is haled as one of those small, fresh companies to watch in articles in Forbes. They’d be bigger if they’d have been operating in any other city but Gotham –Gotham has  always been a Wayne city. But, as it appears, the pros of being in the large-casting shadow is that you operated under smaller scope and the Drakes have been able to use that to their advantage and grabbed small niches on the slant of being the anti-big-business. Their flight itineraries are impressive; pairs of tickets to places all over the globe in an effort to grow their business. In the excuse of research.   
  
 _Pairs_ of tickets.   
  
Timothy Jackson Drake was enrolled in various schools in the Gotham proper area; seemingly privately educated until he was about nine-years-old, in which he was then enrolled in public school in the Bristol area.   
  
The Drakes had cared enough at one point to have Tim take an IQ test, which he scored just slightly above normal. Which was problematic, as Tim was clearly more intelligent than his test had said he was. And now Bruce wants to know if the test hadn’t done its job, or if Tim had purposely taken the test to show he was just a moderately intelligent child. Nothing that would be exceptional or out of character for the child of Jack and Janet Drake.  
  
Smoke and mirrors seem to play a large role in this young man’s life. It is so familiar, that it hits him in the stomach.  
  
This is Bruce's first time in the boy’s room at the Drake Manor.  
  
It appears that the Drakes also went through quite a large number of hired help - they had been through twelve housekeepers from the time when Tim was three until a few months after he turned nine. Ms. McIlvaine had been with them as a general housekeeper for four years now, the longest anyone had been on the payroll. A cleaning crew came in every four days, but they had little to no interaction with any of the Manor’s occupants and they didn’t clean Tim’s room, for whatever reason that may be.  
  
Not that the room needed it.   
  
Bruce easily picked the outside lock of the third-floor bedroom window, watches as it swings open with a slow, ominous creak. Obviously Tim hadn’t used this window to sneak out. Or maybe it hadn’t mattered how loud the window was. Because the Drakes took trips frequently and all over the world.  You can't hear the window squeak in Paris.  
  
At first glance, it really does seem like a normal, albeit slightly tidier, thirteen-year-old’s room. There is a queen-sized bed with a wooden headboard, the linens are expensive and slate gray with white accents. And while the bed is made, the corners of the sheets were tucked in crisply, with barely a wrinkle, the pillows straight and smooth rested neatly at the head of the bed.  
  
There is a large, matching secretary’s desk with a fifteen-inch LCD desktop monitor powered off and a lamp that Batman switches on to illuminate the room and the workspace. Tim’s laptop is sitting next to the monitor, also powered off; a slightly unfolded newspaper is also on the surface, interrupting the otherwise clutter-free space. A plain wooden desk chair isneatly pushed in and a black cotton sweater was resting on the back of it.  
  
There are two sets of bookshelves in the room; one that matches the rest of the bedroom furniture and one that appears to be from one of those Swedish furniture stores. Both are near full-capacity, the cheap particle boards of the newer shelf bowing under the weight. Dozens of books are jammed in the shelvesand a quick skim reveals them to be mostly school notes. A few of them are journals, but even in those there is nothing to give off any red signals. The top shelf contains a display and collection of lenses and cameras.  
  
There is no dust on anything. There is no dust anywhere in this room. It's almost like Alfred had gotten to the room before him.  
  
The rest of the shelves contain books on a large variety of subjects from endocrinology to java and coding. There are books on karate and abnormal psychology, books on classic literature and physics. There are self-helps on coping with grief, how to cook and connecting with others.   
  
Amazon dot com was clearly this boy’s only friend, only source of meaningful advice.  
  
Bruce picks up books at random and fanned through them, noticing the notes in the margin in what had to be Tim’s small, spiky writing - he writes in all capital letters, with very sharp points. Severe and practical.  
  
After he reshelves the last book, Bruce turns to look around. The floor is vacuumed to perfection, the tracks from the machine have left perfect ‘v’s on the red, traditional patterned area rug under his boots. Another jacket hangs from the edge of the foot-board of Tim’s bed and a stack of cds are way to carefully strewn in one of the corners of the room. He noticed that the jewel-cases were alphabetized before they had been toppled over.   
  
A clean pair of jeans is purposefully, haphazardly thrown on the floor. One pair of jeans.  
  
Tim’s walk-in closet is organized better than most. Clothes are color coordinated from black to white, t-shirts were folded neatly and stacked on built-in shelves and shoes were lined up perfectly along the baseboard. There are clear, plastic containers that are labeled in permanent marker of their contents, just nick-knacks and accessories of things a person collects as they grow up.  
  
Again, everything is surprisingly clean and tidy. Too clean and tidy, yet.   
  
Yet, on first glance to casual guests, the room is just *slightly* messy enough to right off as a normal adolescent’s dwelling. Tim’s parent’s, if they ever came in here, would only look around, glance at the pile of cds and sigh. And if the house keeper ever comes in, she’d probably just cluck her tongue and bend down to fold the jeans Tim has left out and place them on his bed before turning and walking out.  
  
Tim has been grooming his split personality, hiding himself for years, it seemed. But from who? And at what cost? _Why_?  
  
Bruce knows he probably wouldn’t find anything, but he checks under the mattress and bed anyway. Checks behind the mirrors, checked for loose floorboards; there is nothing.  
  
It doesn’t matter, though. Bruce has found out what he needed to and he flips off the light he had turned on at the desk, gently oils the window’s hinges before stepping out and gently closing it behind him.   
  
*  
  
Tim comes over around five in the afternoon on Mondays, after a few hours of studying at the library by his school. Generally, the boy doesn’t make it to the gate until about 4:45 as custom dictates that Alfred has to be *Alfred* at the boy for thirty minutes or so.  
  
Today is no exception and he hears his oldest friend pull out the chair at the bar for Tim. Bruce can practically feel the disapproving look that Alfred is giving the boy who is about to refute a snack.  
  
Tim isn’t stupid, though, and he hears the scrape of the chair’s feet on the floor as Tim sits down.  
  
"I’ll get you a glass of milk, young sir. What can I make you to eat." Not really a question.  
  
"Thank you, Alfred. I’m not really hungry, though." He hears Tim’s backpack make a thunk on the floor as the textbooks hit the wood.  
  
There is a pause in conversation and Bruce hears the refrigerator open and close and the sound of a glass being placed on the granite counter-tops.  
  
"Um. Okay. Whatever you have that’s easy, Alfred. Thank you." Alfred can be very convincing with just a certain look.  
  
"Very good, sir. How about an omelet. Plenty of protein for you." Which meant that Tim was going to be eating the omelet to end all other omelets.   
  
Alfred had enjoyed feeding both Dick and Jason when they were living here. Both of the boys had seemed to be bottomless pits –place anything in front of them and it would be gone within ten minutes. Jason had literally gained ten healthy pounds in the first two weeks of living with him, and Bruce had to accredit that to Alfred’s diligent cooking. Every meal a feast.  
  
Tim wasn’t Jason, though. Tim hadn’t been malnourished and gaunt. Tim wasn’t even Dick, who had the metabolism of his namesake, a robin. Tim is just smaller, though he seems to eat regularly, and he was sure the housekeeper made regular meals and frozen casseroles.   
  
He hears Alfred start the meal for Tim, the click of a the burner, the crack of the eggs. He hears the older man ask about the youth’s day.  
  
Tim’s responses are short and polite; hard to tell if he is nervous or not used to this sort of conversation. Alfred asks about friends at school and Tim supplies him with a name, ‘Ives’, but apparently they haven’t hung out in a while. Alfred triesagain, asking about Tim’s parents, who are, according to Tim, in Peru until Saturday or Sunday.   
  
Bruce has heard enough of Tim's middleschool exploits for the day and he walks back to his office and sits down to read the book that had been left open until Alfred comes to get him fifteen minutes later.  
  
The man silently moves into the room, “Young Timothy should be in the caves in approximately ten minutes. Is there anything else you would like me to do for you or him, sir?”  
  
Bruce shut the book and studies Alfred, “Do you think Tim is underfed, Alfred?” He needs to know why the old man has such a stake in Tim’s eating habits. If the older man saw something troubling in the kid that perhaps he had missed, Bruce needed to be aware of it.  
  
Alfred looks thoughtful before he replies, “I do believe Tim is of good health and good physical condition.”  
  
Just what he thought, but still… “Then?”  
  
Another thoughtful look, “The boy is… the only one of the three who we don’t have 100 percent control of, Master Bruce. He doesn’t live here, therefore we cannot monitor him as closely. But that isn’t the only reason for my fixing him his afternoon snack.”  
  
"Alfred?"  
  
"I do believe, the boy– Tim, needs to be gentled into a routine where people inquire about his day-to-day life. He’s… Alone more than the others. It may be fine for him, he may be more like you in that regard, but. I do need to be sure that he knows that you and I have interest in him as someone who is wanted around and not just because he provides a… service."   
  
So, Alfred is trying to get to know Tim, too. In a healthy, normal Alfred way. Notably *not* by sneaking in to Tim’s room and going through the boy’s things.   
  
"I believe we need to treat young Timothy just as we did the other boys. Maybe even watch him closer, as we have to send him back in the same condition. In what I hope is *better* condition." Alfred smoothed out an invisible crease in his shirt, "I will not forget that Tim is giving us a gift, even if he doesn’t see it that way himself."  
  
Tim _is_ giving them a gift. “Noted, Alfred. Just… Noted.”  
  
Bruce picks up the book one more time and follows Alfred out of the office and into the kitchen where they saw Tim scraping half of his unfinished plate into the compost bin. He looks up, wide eyes slightly guilty, before placing the plate into the sink.  
  
"Um. Thanks, Alfred, that was the best omelet I’ve ever had. I’m stuffed." Tim offered a small, crooked smile, before rinsing the plate.  
  
Alfred immediately ushers him out of the way and continues the task the boy had started, “It’s my pleasure, sir. I do hope your training goes well.” And that is a dismissal, and Tim is clearly already well versed in those, because he hops too.  
  
And it is all Bruce needed to see. He has all the pieces now. “I need to talk to you in the study, before we head down, Tim.” And he leads the boy into the warm, wooden room, filled to the brim with knowledge and flooded with late afternoon sunlight. He always feels warm in this room, because that warmth, the light, made life seem easy, which in turn makes him feel guilty, even if it is only in the deepest part of himself.   
  
He wonders if Tim likes the warmth. He wonders if Tim felt guilt too, or if he felt… Anything at all. Is this just a room that Batman uses, to Tim? Or is he looking for pieces of Dick- of Jason. Of Robin within these walls?  
  
Tim looks... Tim looks how he often looks. Blank, blank everywhere except his too-big, blue-brown eyes, which holds questions and way too much trust for Bruce to even know what to do with.   
  
Except–   
  
"I’ve decided to try a new approach, Tim." And sometimes, Bruce really wants to call Tim ‘Drake’. Just to see if there would be a change in the expression. He wonders what his parents call him when they are overseas or in the kitchen sitting next to him. Do his friends call him Drake? Timmy?   
  
He’d corrected Dick a number of times, ‘It’s just Tim.’  
  
Just Tim.  
  
"I’m not… I’m not learning fast enough, am I." They’d both recognized the… slow process, then. Everything about Tim screams that Tim isn’t used to struggling. He is a hard worker but, he isn’t accustomed to being especially bad at anything, if not terribly wonderful at everything. "It’s… well. I kind of knew it would be slow, but… this is going *really* slow. Isn’t it?"  
  
"Your pace… is fine. You’re actually going about the same pace that… Jason had been going in the beginning. The differences between your strengths and his are… illuminating, though."   
  
Jason had… he’d taken to training like fish to water. The bags, the weights, even the more physical fighting styles like, boxing and the grappling style of the pieces of Judo he’d been shown. Tim, despite his perfectly adequate training in karate, probably won’t have the feeling of ease until Bruce allows the boy to hit the database, to think critically about a situation.  
  
Tim would have to be field-ready, more-so than the others, before they can get into that.   
  
Despite what others thought about him, Bruce learns his lessons too.  
  
All in all though, Tim is really doing fine. Bruce wouldn’t say he is a *natural* at anything but questioning, reading and spitting back everything quickly and concisely. Tim’s mind is much faster than his body is, and his body is often opposed to what his mind wants from it.   
  
Sometimes watching Tim’s thoughts be mentally at war with his body is amusing. Other times it makes Bruce want to wince in sympathy.  
  
Bruce sighs and brings his hands down flat on his desk. “It’s come to my attention that maybe you require a more practical component to your training.” He hands the two paperbacks to Tim, who hasn’t broken eye contact with him. “We’re going to start with running and endurance, because you are already a pretty solid runner and because I know for a fact that running can absolutely be learned from a book.” Tim’s eyes take in the titles of the books and he nods with narrowing eyes and skims the backs of them. “You’re going to want to skip steps, Tim. Resist the urge.” He smiles slightly.  
  
Tim looks determined. He always looks determined, “Okay.”  
  
"How quick can you read those by, on top of your school work?"  
  
Tim shrugs, “Honestly? They’ll probably be done by tomorrow morning.” Bruce raises an eyebrow, “I’m a fast reader.”  
  
Go figure. “That’s your assignment, then. We can talk about this tomorrow.” He notices Alfred waiting outside the door in the hall.  
  
Tim opens one of the books to the first page and reads as he stands up. Tim shrugs on his hooded sweatshirt, shoving his arms into their sleeves one at a time. “Thanks for your help, Bruce. See you tomorrow.”  
  
Alfred clears his throat and is looking at Bruce with what has to be a very veiled threat, “The young sir won’t be joining you for dinner, Master Bruce?” And there is an obvious point in there. Alfred would often feed Tim again after training during the weekdays.  
  
"Not today, but the eggs were great, Alfred, thanks again." He moves closer to the doorway, but Alfred hasn’t moved from it yet. He is still looking at Bruce with calculating blue eyes.  
  
Tim’s parents are away… “Hm. You could read here for a few hours? And then you can stay for dinner.”  
  
Tim looks around and then back at Bruce, uncertainty on his face. “I don’t want to bother you…” He transfers the books from one arm to the other, trapping them by his hip and reaching up to tug at the hair near his right temple.  
  
"You’re reading, Tim, not performing a John Philips Sousa March." He lets his mouth quirk up at the corner when Tim smiles to the floor, "You should stay. I have some things for WE to go over."  
  
Tim switches the books in his arms one more time, “Oh… okay.” He sits back down in the chair in front of the desk, and moves it a little closer.  
  
Alfred nods and moves away from the doorway, “I’ll go bring you both some tea.” And he leaves without another word.  
  
Bruce opens the first of the twenty files that Lucius has given him to review, but keeps his eyes on Tim, watches the boy’s eyes track quickly across each page, brows slightly furrowed, hunched over the text.  
  
"Tim." He reaches over and grabs a fountain pen from a drawer as Tim immediately looked up. "They’re your books, you can make notes if you need to." And he hands him the writing utensil.  
  
The boy slightly cocks his head before reaching out and taking the pen from Bruce’s hand, “Thanks, Bruce, how’d you know?” And he bends down and scribbled something in the margin before dog-earing that page. “I really think this might help me.”  His legs kick against the foot of the seat, betraying his excitement.  
  
Bruce nods to himself and looks back down to the file in front of him. “I think I’m beginning to figure you out, Tim Drake.”


End file.
